Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Dynamic Data Rate and Transmit Power Adjustment in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs

  • Published:
International Journal of Wireless Information Networks Aims and scope Submit manuscript

In this paper a novel link adaptation algorithm is proposed that is capable of adjusting the transmit power level and the data rate jointly to the radio channel conditions. The proposed method relies solely on link quality information available at the transmitter by employing the reception or non-reception of the acknowledgment frames as a measure of the channel quality with respect to the power level and data rate. The method is fully compatible with the 802.11 wireless LAN standard. In contrast to many other proposals, it neither relies on the RTS/CTS protocol nor requires a feedback channel to transmit link-quality estimates from the receiver to the transmitter. Different strategies for optimizing the data rate and power level are given. These depend on the scenarios considered, the number of active stations, and the service requirements. The two main strategies are either to drive the system towards the highest possible data rate and adjust the rate and power levels accordingly (“high-performance” mode) or to focus on power saving, possibly trading this for other performance criteria such as throughput or delay performance (“low-power” mode). Other special cases, such as power or rate only adaptation, are also discussed. It can be shown that in most cases the best choice for achieving low transfer times, maximizing throughput, and alleviating the hidden terminal problem is to transmit at the highest possible rates and with high power levels. This “high-performance” mode of operation also minimizes the transmission times, which in turn maximizes the time for putting idling components into a sleep mode, thereby minimizing the overall power consumption.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. IEEE Std 802.11a-1999, Supplement to IEEE Standard for Information Technology—Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems—Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Specific Requirements—Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications: High-speed Physical Layer in the 5 GHz Band, IEEE 1999

  2. IEEE Std 802.11g-2003, IEEE Standard for Information Technology—Telecommunications and Information Exchange between Systems—Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Specific Requirements—Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications—Amendment 4: Further Higher Data Rate Extension in the 2.4 GHz Band, June 2003

  3. IEEE Std 802.11-1999, Information Technology—Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems—Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—Specific Requirements—Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications, 1999

  4. G. Holland, N. Vaidya, and P. Bahl, A Rate-Adaptive MAC protocol for multi-hop wireless networks. In Proc. MOBICOM’01, Rome, Italy, July 2001

  5. A. Kamerman and L. Montean, WaveLAN-II: A High-Performance Wireless LAN for the Unlicensed Band, Bell Labs Technical Journal, pp. 118–133, Summer 1997

  6. D. Qiao and S. Choi, Goodput Enhancement of IEEE 802.11a Wireless LAN via Link Adaptation. In Proc. ICC’2001, Vol. 7, pp. 1995–2000, Helsinki, Finnland, 2001

  7. A. Forenza and R. W. Heath Jr., Link Adaptation and Channel Prediction in Wireless OFDM Systems. In Proc. Globecom’02, Vol. 3, pp. 211–214, 2002

  8. S. T. Sheu, Y. H. Lee, and M. H. Chen, Providing Multiple Data Rates in Infrastructure Wireless Networks. In Proc. Global Telecommunications Conf. 2001, Vol. 3, pp. 1908–1912, San Antonio, TX, USA, 2001

  9. Y. J. Cheng, Y. H. Lee, and S. T. Sheu, Multi-rate Transmissions in Infrastructure Wireless LAN based on IEEE 802.11b Protocol. In Proc. 54th VTC 2001, Vol. 4, pp. 2609–2612, Atlantic City, NJ, USA, 2001

  10. A. Noll Barreto, P. Chevillat, J. Jelitto, and H. L. Truong, A Dynamic Link Adaptation Algorithm for IEEE 802.11a Wireless LANs. In Proc. ICC 2003—IEEE 2003 Int’l Conf. on Communications, Vol. 2, pp. 1141–1145, Anchorage, AK, USA, May 2003

  11. J. del Prado Pavon and S. Choi, Link Adaptation Strategy for IEEE 802.11 WLAN via Received Signal Stregth Measurement. In Proc. ICC 2003—IEEE 2003 Int’l Conf. on Communications, Anchorage, AK, USA, May 2003

  12. M. Krunz and A. Muqattash, A Power Control Scheme for MANETs with Improved Throughput and Energy Consumption. In Proc. of the 5th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications, Vol. 2, pp. 771–775, October 2002

  13. C. R. Lin and C. Y. Liu, Enhancing the Performance of IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN by Using a Distributed Cycle Stealing Mechanism. In Proc. 4th IEEE Conference on Mobile and Wireless Communications Network, pp. 564–568, Stockholm, Sweden, September 2002

  14. S. Agarwal et al., Distributed Power Control in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks. In Proc. IEEE PIMRC’01, 2: F-59–F-66, 2001

  15. Ebert J.-P. and Wolisz A.(2001). Combined tuning of RF power and medium access control for WLANs. Mobile Networks & Applications 5(6): 417–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. A. Kraemling et al., Interaction of Power Control and Link Adaptation for Capacity Enhancement and QoS Assistance. In Proc. of 13th IEEE International Symposium on Personal Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC 2002), Vol. 2, pp. 697–701, Lisbon, Portugal, September 2002

  17. D. Qiao, S. Choi, Amjad Soomro, and K. G. Shin, Energy-Efficient PCF Operation of IEEE 802.11a Wireless LAN. In Proc. IEEE INFOCOM02, Vol. 2, pp. 580–589, New York, USA, June 2002

  18. D. Qiao, S. Choi, A. Jain, and K.G. Shin, Adaptive Transmit Power Control in IEEE 802.11a Wireless LANs. In Proc. 57th IEEE Semiannual Vehicular Technology Conference, Vol. 1, pp. 433–437, Jeju, Korea, April 2003

  19. S. Simoens and D. Bartolomé, Optimum Performance of Link Adaptation in HIPERLAN/2 Networks. In Proc. of VTC 2001, Vol. 2, pp. 1129–1133, 2001

  20. Z. Lin, G. Malmgren, and J. Torsner, System Performance Analysis of Link Adaptation in HIPERLAN Type 2. In Proc. of the VTC 2000 Fall, Vol. 4, pp. 1719–1725, 2000

  21. Wu S.L., Tseng Y.C., Lin C.Y. and Sheu J.P.(2002) A multi-channel MAC protocol with power control for multi-hop mobile ad hoc networks. The Computer J. 45(1):101–110

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  22. J. Jelitto, A. Noll Barreto, and H. L. Truong, “Power and Rate Adaptation in IEEE 802.11a Wireless LANs,” in Proc. 57th IEEE Semiannual Vehicular Technology Conference, Vol. 1, pp. 413–417, Jeju, Korea, April 2003

  23. J. Jelitto and H. Linh Truong, “A Multi-MAC Approach to Overcome the Throughput Limits of 802.11 WLANs,” In Proc. 2004 International Zurich Seminar on Communications, pp. 32–35, Zurich, Switzerland, February 2004

  24. van Nee R. and Prasad R.(2000). OFDM Wireless Multimedia Communications, chapter 1056. Artech House, Boston, London

    Google Scholar 

  25. H. Hashemi, “The Indoor Radio Propagation Channel,” Proc. IEEE, Vol. 81, No. 7, pp. 943–968, July 1993

  26. B. H. Walke et al., “IP over Wireless Mobile ATM—Guaranteed Wireless QoS by HiperLAN/2,” Proc. IEEE, Vol. 89, pp. 21–40, January 2001

  27. D. J. Goodman and H. Xie, “PRMA System Performance with Variable Number of Calls,” Technical Report WINLAB-TR-36, June 1992

  28. ITU-T Recommendation G.711, Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) of Voice Frequencies, 1988

  29. K. Svanbro, “Lower Layer Guidelines for Robust RTP/UDP/IP Header Compression,” RFC 3409, December 2002

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zurich Research Laboratory, IBM Research GmbH, Säumerstr. 4/Postfach, CH-8803, Rüschlikon, Switzerland

    Pierre Chevillat, Jens Jelitto & Hong Linh Truong

Authors
  1. Pierre Chevillat
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jens Jelitto
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Hong Linh Truong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jens Jelitto.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Chevillat, P., Jelitto, J. & Truong, H. Dynamic Data Rate and Transmit Power Adjustment in IEEE 802.11 Wireless LANs. Int J Wireless Inf Networks 12, 123–145 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-005-0006-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-005-0006-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation